Max Verstappen managed to secure second place at the British Grand Prix, but he believes Red Bull received a crucial wake-up call.
Following the race, Verstappen asserted that Red Bull no longer possesses the fastest car in Formula 1 and acknowledged that the team has “work to do.” Starting from fourth, Verstappen’s second-place finish at Silverstone was facilitated by George Russell’s retirement and McLaren’s strategic error in switching Lando Norris to soft tires during the change from intermediates.
Red Bull’s decision to fit Verstappen’s car with hard tires at the final pit stop proved advantageous, as they did not degrade as quickly, enabling him to salvage a podium finish. Initially, Verstappen had feared he might drop to fifth or sixth in the early stages of the race.
Despite overtaking Norris in the closing laps, Verstappen admitted that the RB20 is no longer the fastest car on the grid. “If you look at an average stint, the others were much faster and drove away,” he told Viaplay. “McLaren only chose the wrong tire. If Norris had been on mediums, I would have had no chance. There is work to be done because we are not the fastest at the moment.”
Despite the team’s struggles, Verstappen praised the strategic decisions made during the race, which allowed them to compete for the win, ultimately finishing just 1.4 seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton. “We made the right choices. I called for us to switch to inters, so that was good, but we were too slow, the tires got hot, but we made the right decision to go back to slicks,” he said.
“The team put the hard tire on, and that was good for me. Had I been on softs, I think I would have fallen even further back. To end up second with a slow car and make the right decisions, that was the maximum.”
